Jim Six: The joy of singing -- and helping others

View full sizePhoto providedGlenn Roemmich and country singer Sherry Lynn

Glenn Roemmich doesn’t exactly sing for his supper. He does it for the joy he gets from it.

Glenn is a dispatcher for the Gloucester County Emergency Response Center — in other words, he may be on the other end of the call when you dial 9-1-1.

He’s been there for 28 years. He’s been a firefighter in Paulsboro for 34 years.

But through it all, Glenn has, on occasion, raised his voice in song.

“I sang in the church choir when I was a kid,” he said.

“I was dragged to church by my father,” said Glenn. By taking the kids to church, his dad was also giving Glenn’s mom a brief respite — “Usually the only break she got during the week.”

Glenn’s first choir director was Marie Dietrich, who’s still at the church.

“She smiles every time I sing,” he said.

“When I got to the point of making my own decisions, I was playing softball on Sunday mornings. Then I went back to church. I sat in the back row. Some girls in the choir would ask me to join,” said Glenn.

Finally, the choir director tapped him on the shoulder. And Glenn gave in — “I felt if God gave me a gift, I had to use it.”

So he’d sing at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Paulsboro. He soloed when his church participated in the Second Baptist Church’s building dedication, after being in the choir for only about four or five months.

Later, he started singing at the State Fireman’s Association Convention in Wildwood.

A member of the New Jersey State Exempt Fireman’s Association, Glenn sang the Lord’s Prayer when that group had a memorial service in Paulsboro.

George Heflich Sr., the president of the NJSFA, asked Glenn if he would be willing to sing that song at a memorial service in Wildwood. He did so for about three years, then added the duty of singing the National Anthem twice during the convention, held in September.

“The first year I was on the agenda, some Gloucester County firefighters were saying, ‘Hey, look, Glenn’s going to recite the Lord’s Prayer.’ You should have seen their jaws drop,” he said.

“I’d done it here in Paulsboro a couple of times, the Fourth of July, Paulsboro Day, at church, and the audience was maybe 50, 60 people,” said Glenn. “In Wildwood, it was maybe 7,000 firefighters who don’t want to be there while you’re singing. I had a case of the nerves, really bad.”

These days, though, Glenn is more relaxed.

As an exempt firefighter having reached a certain percentage of active fire responses, Glenn doesn’t have to respond to every fire in Paulsboro, but he tries to make them, anyway.

“My father’s done this for 51 years and, when the whistle blows, he still goes,” he said. “I know it’s corny, but you’re trying to help your fellow man.”

He laughs. “There’s something wrong with us. We tell everyone to get out (of a burning building) but we go in.”

As an instructor at the Gloucester County Fire Academy, Glenn teaches communications and report writing.

To add to an already busy schedule, Glenn has found himself part of the crew for Washington Township country singer, Sherry Lynn.

He got to know her through fellow firefighter Jeff Pfeiffer, a captain in the Deptford Fire Department, who plays drums in Lynn’s band.

When he met Lynn and her band, “they felt like family,” Glenn said. “I went to the next gig and have been with them ever since.”

He helps haul equipment around, he said, and, before Mike White, a Deptford fire district commissioner, started working the sound board, did a little of that, as well.

“Now I take pictures and video and I’m a roadie,” said Glenn.

He can’t make every gig — the band is in Nashville right now — but he gets to as many as he can.

“It lets me be part of music again,” he said.

“I’ve been and seen places I never thought I’d see. I’ve been to Nashville, Iowa, Liberty, N.Y. (Sherry Lynn) headlined the side stage at a WXTU concert. She’s getting there,” said Glenn.

This year, Glenn is the second vice president of the NJEFA, an office his dad, Archie, once held. The Roemmichs are the first father-son team to work their way through the group’s board, in its 126 year history.